1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to brushes used on human hair, animal hair and animal fur. Brushing short curly human hair is a simple process if you don't desire a well-manicured look.
2. Discussion of Background Art
To achieve a well-manicured look or wave pattern, the hair must be trained over time by employing a regimen of manual brushing multiple times a day a few minutes at a time. A similar problem occurs with animal hair and animal fur. There are many styles of pet brushes on the market, but each requires the user to spend large amounts of time brushing the coat of the animal to achieve the desired results, in addition to removing the animal hair/fur from the brush.
Research did not uncover any products specifically designed to address all of the problems for short human hair, animal hair or animal fur, but there are a few patents that attempt to provide solutions.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,098,635 issued to Marino (2000) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,158,073 issued to Jiovanni (2000), provide a means for brushing long human hair. Both inventions utilize a brush with bristles spaced 360 degrees around a core powered by a motor and the Marino invention includes dividers that prevent the hair from wrapping around the brush core. The Jiovanni invention can be used on short or long human hair but the separate handle-brush configuration isn't effective at applying downward force through the bristles to the scalp. The handle-brush configuration requires the user to generate a large amount of force across a moment arm to generate the desired downward force at the scalp.
The Marino invention is intended to be used by humans with long hair who are concerned about their hair wrapping around the brush core. The dividers in this configuration make it difficult to use close to the scalp and skin because the dividers will bump against the surface. Also neither of these inventions provides a means of removing the hair and fur that may get lodged into the bristles.
U.S. Pat. App. No. 2004/0231077 submitted by Richmond provides a means for brushing short hair close to the scalp or skin. This invention utilizes a belt with perpendicular bristles to smooth the hair. Just as the other inventions, the Richmond solution does not provide a means of removing hair or fur from the bristles.
Although the prior devices have utility for their intended purposes, there remains a need in the art for a hair/fur brush that overcomes all of the known deficiencies and problems. The present invention has been developed as a solution to the known problems, and specifically to provide a hair brush that delivers many strokes per minute with minimal manual effort and the ability to easily remove dislodged hair and fur from the brush bristles, and more specifically such a brush having a configuration that can easily apply sufficient downward force between the bristles and the object being brushed to achieve maximum performance.